writing.

Mired in a Mad woman’s Madness

This post is part of the A to Z Challenge. Each post will be associated with a letter of the alphabet with the theme ‘Letters to my younger self’.

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Dear naive 25-year-old me,

Skip that conference you were planning to attend next month. Just skip it. It sounds great and everything, possibly filled to the brim with useful information and critical knowledge, but if you go, if you step one size 6 foot in the door of the conference hall, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Or, a very long, long, LONG time.

At the conference (if you still decide to attend, you stubborn girl you), you’ll sit in the row right in front of a group of older women and they will be catching up and semi-gossiping. You’ll feel slightly irritated at the cackling. This is a sign, trust your gut, girlie. If all else fails, trust your gut.

During the tea break, one of them will notice your tag which will have your name and your university in Canada and she’ll introduce herself. The both of you will chat about the previous speaker and you’ll tell her why you decided to attend the conference. She’ll be interested in your career aspirations and when the break ends, she’ll hand you her name card and ask you to catch up with her upon your return from Canada. Since you’re still naive and innocent in the ways of the world, you’ll be unaware that you’ve just spoken to the devil’s incarnate and will think that the lady AKA Mad woman sounds interesting.

Huh. Just you wait.

That moment will be the beginning, the absolute beginning of the very bitter, turbulent, stressful, painful, hellish road which will be known as “being her employee and eventually her business partner.”

Yes, you will own a business but that’s beside the point. Listen. If you join your fate with hers, you will suffer. You will have to bite your tongue, grit your teeth, shed tears, draw blood, have YOUR blood drawn and just plain allow yourself to be tortured mentally, emotionally and physically. I am not joking.

So, if you want the next 10 years of your life to be grey hair free, easy and breezy, full of laughter and joy, filled with rainbows galore and singing cartoon characters, DO. NOT. GO. TO. THAT. CONFERENCE.

Kate, I thought it’d be easy to come up with letters to warn my younger self but his exercise has made me realise that there aren’t many occasions which I’d warn my younger self because going through those events made me the me I am today 🙂

Wow! So many events in life go back to one specific moment, when we could have chosen to do something differently. It sometimes seems to be by total chance, but if you had picked a seat at the other end of the row, f ex? That’s how life is. For better and for worse. Great post, again!

Ahhhh…. to have the hindsight to go back and have a “do-over”! At 25 we all want to start our dreams and goals that we sometimes reach in the wrong direction. I loved the way you described the gossiping and cackling of the women behind you. I was at a conference recently and experienced the same. Totally turned me off.